Know the world in yourself
by Taisi
Summary: Donatello is an aspiring Egyptologist, and close friends with part-time thief and sometimes-scoundrel Casey Jones, who pickpockets an ancient map of the fabled City of the Dead off a young man he stumbles across in the Casbah- a young adventurer, it turns out, and none other than the little brother Donatello hasn't seen in almost eight years. (TMNT/The Mummy crossover)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: And here it is. The crossover between TMNT and The Mummy that literally no one wanted. Well, one person wanted. And she is Moogsthewriter, and she is wonderful and I love her, and burden her daily with my friendship, and since she somehow puts up with me, I wrote this monster for her birthday. There are two parts. :)

I borrowed a lot of dialogue from the movie and the movie script; Mikey, Donnie and Casey assume the roles of Rick, Evelyn and Jonathon respectively. Leatherhead is an additional character, because I love him. You don't _have_ to have seen the movie to follow this story, but it would probably make it a little easier to understand. And plus it's a pretty great movie.

Titled after the Egyptian proverb, _"Know the world in yourself. Never look for yourself in the world, for this would be to project your illusion."_

* * *

Donatello tries not to cling to Casey's arm as they follow the Warden through the prison yard, but he's not successful in that endeavor in the least.

"You told me that you got it on a dig down in _Thebes!"_

"Yeah, well," Casey says, with a furtive glance around that looks as nervous as Don feels, "I was mistaken."

"You lied to me!"

"I lie to everybody, what makes _you_ so special?"

"I'm your friend!" Donatello exclaims, and Casey doesn't miss a beat with his wink and a smile.

"Well, that just makes you more gullible."

Far too charming for his own good, honestly, and Donatello doesn't know _why_ he puts up with him. Then the puzzle box shifts in his pocket with his next step, the slightest weight against his thigh, and he thinks, _Oh, yes, of course._

Without Casey Jones, Donatello is certain he would be stuck in that musty museum library forever. He may not have enough experience in the field to go on proper expeditions, but he has experience enough in keeping Casey out of trouble that he'd never say no to a misadventure like the one they're on. Not when it might lead them to the famed, fabled City of the Dead, and an ancient treasure the likes of which the world has never seen.

"Alright, I stole it off a man at the casbah," Casey finally admits, mistakenly taking Don's thoughtful reverie as an accusatory silence. "Picked his pocket, actually. I never would have managed it if he hadn't been so wrapped up in this argument he was having with his companion. Something about a guy named _Beni?_ I dunno, his Arabic was really good for an American, I could hardly keep up."

"An American?" Donatello muses as they're led toward the visitor's pens. "Like me, eh? Oh that reminds me—excuse me, Warden? What exactly is this man in prison for?"

"Well, this I did not know," the man says, frowning, "so when I heard you were coming, I asked him myself. He said… he was just looking for a good time."

The heavy metal cell door swings open, and four guards shove their maninto the pen. He's in chains, golden skin smudged with dirt and sand and blood, and he lifts manacled hands to push some of that tangled mop of blond hair out of his face. Donatello feels his face wrinkle a little in disgust, somewhat disheartened to find that the man they've come looking for is nothing more than a dirty criminal—

Then the man lifts his head, and hits Donatello with two bright blue eyes he would know absolutely _anywhere._

And he staggers, feeling Casey brace him with an arm around his back, and flattens a hand against his heart, because it's beating so wildly he's half-afraid it might burst out of his chest.

" _Mikey?"_

His little brother blinks once, then twice, and doesn't smile right away. Just rubs at a bruise on his face, smearing enough grime away that Donatello can just make out a dusting of achingly familiar freckles, studying the two of them through the bars. Then, after what could have been hours or days, one side of his mouth turns up into a sideways smirk.

"Well, well, well—I never thought I'd see a brother of mine in a place like _this."_ He speaks in a different manner than he used to, as though English is foreign on his tongue, and there is none of the warmth Donatello remembers in his eyes. He doesn't look at Casey, but inclines his head an inch in Casey's direction as he adds, "Nice company you keep these days."

"Mikey what are you _doing_ here?" Don surges a step forward, grabs the bars between them in fists that shake. "How did you end up here? How are you in _Egypt_ of all places?"

His brother's smirks eases into something mostly honest, mostly amused at Donatello's expense. And Donatello, for one, feels as though he's missed some huge punchline.

He hasn't seen his family in seven years. He went away to University in London, and then he came to Egypt, and now he works at a museum in Cairo—only because his father, a rather famous explorer in his day, had endorsed enough of his time and money and good name into the place that the curator is willing to overlook Donatello's constant clumsy mishaps. Just today, he had all but _destroyed_ the library, knocking every single bookshelf over in one idiot move with the ladder, all of the antiquities literature laying in a dusty, undignified heap on the floor. It probably _still_ was, come to think of it, because he had set out with Casey and the puzzle box the moment he understood where the half-map they had salvaged from candle fire was meant to lead them.

And now the man Casey had looted the key to Hamunaptra from was none other than Donatello's one and only baby brother. Fourteen years old when Donatello left and twenty-one now, taller than Donatello remembered and darker with time spent in the desert sun, fair skin tanned a heady brown, curly hair hanging past his ears, shoulders broad and arms thick with muscle, and Donatello can't believe it.

"Mikey, please talk to me," he says, aware of how desperate he probably sounds, pushing this one-sided conversation. "Why did you leave home?"

"I never left home, Donnie," he says, and his cool smile doesn't falter. "Home left me."

A cold pit settles in Donatello's stomach, and he searches his brother's eyes—he still _knows_ Michelangelo, better than all the books and artifacts and historical text in the world, and he knows pain when he sees it, even if Michelangelo's face remains a mask of entertained composure.

And then the Warden signals with a hand, and the guards grab Michelangelo by the back of his tattered shirt. They beat him, once, with what looks like a club, and he doesn't fight as they drag him back inside. Donatello, though, is beside himself.

"No!" he shouts, and beats against the bars with his fists. "Bring him back!" The Warden is unprepared for the strength of his fury as Donatello turns to face him, and even Casey backs up a step when Donatello jerks his arm free. "Where are they taking him?"

"To be hanged," the Warden says slowly. "He and his servant both. Apparently, they had a _very_ good time."

"Absolutely not," he bites out, light-headed with panic. "I will pay you eight-hundred pounds to free him this instant, and release him to me. _Now!"_

The promise of that kind of money has the Warden moving quickly, barking out orders in fast-tongued Arabic, and Donatello digs for his money purse with hands that shake. He hears Casey take a few measured steps to his side, and turns away sharply, just enough that his friend won't see it if the terror turns to tears.

"I didn't mean to steal from your brother," Casey says after a minute. "You talked about 'em, and you showed me pictures a few times, but I didn't recognize him."

"Well," Donatello says with a sniff, "if it weren't for knowing him my whole life, I might not have recognized him, either. He's grown up a lot."

"You weren't wrong for leavin'," Casey adds, low and serious. "You sent 'em money and stuff, I know you did. It wasn't wrong of you to want a life of your own."

"But I should have visited them." Donatello's voice doesn't break. He won't allow for it to. "Or—or wrote more. But when father died, I… I don't know. It was hard. It was more comfortable to get swallowed up in work, and books, and history. But I should have visited them. Now—now Mikey, of all people, is in a prison in Cairo, for god only knows what reason, and—"

"And now you're bailing him out of this hoosegow," Casey says smoothly, with a lilt to his voice that say he's going to make light of this, just to dispel this heavy tension, just so Donatello can breathe. "Like any halfway decent big brother would do. And frankly, Don, that's some heavy sugar you're dealing out. Do you even have that kind of money on you?"

"Not quite," he says, sniffing again and rubbing his nose. "Give me your wallet."

"What—oh, fine."

* * *

Donatello paces the boardwalk, lost in thought.

Michelangelo promised to meet them at the Giza port in the morning, though that's _all_ he promised, and he didn't linger even long enough for Donatello to touch him. Just leaned heavily into the support of his companion, a large, dark-skinned man who towered two heads above everyone else in the gallows, and went on his own way. Donatello tensed when they came out together, he didn't have another farthing on his person to pay his brother's companion's release, too; but the Warden was content with his eight-hundred pounds and didn't seem eager to get in the giant's way as he wrapped a large arm around Michelangelo's shoulder and led him across the courtyard to bought freedom.

It's not that he wanted thanks, or even acknowledgment. He understands Mikey's coolness, he hasn't seen the boy in close to eight years. He left Michelangelo in America with their older brothers, and after their father died, Donatello all but disappeared from his life. He wonders what _happened._ Where Leonardo and Raphael were, to allow Michelangelo to cross the seas and commit crimes and land himself in a faraway desert prison.

"So, we're still going?" Casey asks, shading his eyes against the sun to watch Donatello's back-and-forth march. "To Hamunaptra?"

"We are going to give Mikey back the puzzle box you stole from him," Donatello says sharply, without so much as looking at him, "and if he wants us along, then yes, we're going to Hamunaptra." He hesitates, casting one long, sweeping glance over the crowded docks, and adds quietly, "If he even shows up."

"Oh, he will, I know the breed," Casey says with a languid wink. "He may be a cowboy but his word is his word."

"And what would _you_ know about keeping one's word?" Donatello retorts immediately. "You're hardly a shining example of moral fiber. Just today you were hiding in a sarcophagus behind a mummy, just to scare the daylights out of me."

"Like I said," a familiar voice pipes up, from over Donatello's shoulder, "nice company you keep these days."

Donatello whirls around, and is met with Michelangelo's smiling face. His brother is smartly dressed and clean cut, his curly hair pulled back into a ponytail and his golden skin gleaming in the sun. His companion stands next to him, dressed just as fine, and watches Donatello and Casey with sharp, poison green eyes.

"This is Leatherhead," Michelangelo says off the bat, "he'll be coming with us."

"And he's your—" Donatello trips over this word, he doesn't know why."Friend?"

Michelangelo's smile fades and his eyes narrow. "He's my brother."

"So we're still on, then?" Casey asks loudly, before Donatello has a chance to be cut by that. "That's—that's good, heh, great day to start an adventure!" He taps Michelangelo's arm with his fist, then shakes his hand and Leatherhead's both in short order. "By the way, sorry about, y'know. Had no idea you were family of the friend."

Somehow, that just makes Michelangelo grin again. "Hey, guy's gotta eat. I know how that goes."

"So where did you find that old puzzle box, anyway?" Casey asks eagerly. "I never got to ask."

"Where else? The City of the Dead." Michelangelo seems to enjoy the looks on their faces, if the sly glint in his honest blue eyes is anything to go by.

Donatello's breath is caught in his throat, and Casey—for once in his life—looks shell-shocked, but he still manages to find his voice. "You _swear?"_

"Every damn day," Michelangelo replies without missing a beat.

"No, I mean—"

"I know what you mean. And yeah. Our Colonel found that map in an ancient fortress, and the whole garrison believed in it so much that we marched halfway across Libya and into Egypt without orders just to find that city."

"And when we got there, all we found was sand and blood," Leatherhead says, arms folded where he stands at Michelangelo's shoulder. "We are all that's left. The rest of the men were killed by Tuareg warriors."

 _Oh, Michelangelo,_ Donatello thinks faintly, picturing against his will his brother scrambling for survival in the sands and the heat of the desert. This might be the brink of the greatest archaeological find of the century, but at this point he wants little more than to bring Michelangelo home with him and shut the door against danger and hardship forever.

But Michelangelo only gives his companions a moment to respect the tableau, letting the statement hang in the air briefly before he's hefting his bag a little higher on his shoulder and adding brightly, "Okay, let's go."

* * *

That night on the barge, Casey is quick to join a card game with a cluster of Americans. Donatello watches from his table by the bow as Casey tries to pull Michelangelo into the game as well. Leatherhead is drawing uneasy looks from the rest of the crowd, and it might be that more than anything else that prompts Michelangelo to say, "No thanks. I gamble with my life, but never my money."

One of the men leers, giving Michelangelo a cocksure look, sizing him up and down. Were he the brother Donatello left behind all those years ago, he might not have passed muster; but now, he meets the other man stare for stare, gunnysack over one shoulder, easy competence in every line of his body, and the other American finally breaks into a smile.

"Is that so? What if I were to bet _five hundred_ bucks says we get to Hamunaptra before you?"

"What makes you think that's where we're going?"

"That's what Jones here says."

Michelangelo gives Casey a Look, capital L, that reminds Donatello of Leonardo. Casey waffles visibly, but just for a moment, then nudges Mikey in the ribs with his elbow. "C'mon, Mike, how 'bout it?"

Michelangelo exchanges a quick glance with Leatherhead, then shrugs, and smiles. "Okay, sure. You're on."

"You seem very confident in yourselves," Leatherhead tells the Americans, his voice low and grave, and a few of them shrug.

"We got ourselves a guide who's actually been there before," the one who initiated the bet says, and Michelangelo stiffens in surprise. It's the first crack in his poker face Donatello has seen yet, and somehow he figures that doesn't bode well.

He stands, waving his brother over, and Michelangelo catches sight of him just as Casey says, "That so? Well, Angel and his buddy here have—" Which earns him a hard knock with Michelangelo's gunnysack as he and Leatherhead move around behind him to make their way to Donatello's table, and he clears his throat, recovering quickly. "Who's play is it?"

"Your friend is pretty stupid," Mikey says without preamble when he finally makes it across the deck, tossing his bag on the table and scooting a chair out with his foot for Leatherhead before pulling one out for himself. Donatello sits down as they do, smiling crookedly.

"I know. Believe it or not, though, we graduated together. He's a bit of a genius when it comes to mechanics."

"I'll believe it when I see it," his brother replies without cruelty, looking more entertained than annoyed. "He and Raph would get along." He's tugging open his sack, not quite meeting Donatello's eyes, and Donatello fidgets with his hands under the table, before clearing his throat.

"And what was it Casey called you over there? 'Angel'?"

"Oh, yeah. I've been goin' by Mike Angel for some time now, since _Michelangelo Hamato_ is kind of a mouthful. It's not too far from the truth, so it was easy to adopt. And, y'know, our dad was pretty well-known. No use carting _his_ name around with me, raising flags everywhere I go and getting myself into trouble. I learned that the hard way."

"And he gets into enough trouble as it is with his _own_ name," Leatherhead remarks fondly. "I can't imagine how it could be any worse, but knowing Mike, I trust that it's possible."

"Wow, thanks for that sterling endorsement, big guy. You're supposed to make me sound really impressive and successful in front of my estranged brother."

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Donatello says, "Mikey, please. Can we stop dancing around the subject? Talk to me. Tell me what's been going on."

"If you care so much about what's been going on, why did you stop writing?" Michelangelo replies shortly. It isn't really a question. But something relents in his face, though none of the anger gives way, and he says grudgingly, "When father died, I thought Leonardo was going to _lose_ it. He did, a little bit. He wasn't really the same. You didn't come home, and things just got worse and worse, and then Leo went away. For work, I think, managing all father's accounts. Coulda done that from home, but, you know. Raph left a few months after Leo did. He didn't say why. Guess he figured his reasons would have just been excuses. They wrote, a lot more than you did, but they never left a return address. So eventually, I left, too."

Michelangelo shrugs one shoulder, and continues before Donatello has a chance to say anything, or think anything, or _do_ anything with the weight that's crushing his heart. "It's not the worst story. I was fifteen, I found work. Around the docks, mostly, then aboard fishing boats and cargo ships. Wandered around, got into a certain, uh, line of business. I've been _everywhere_ , just about. Ended up in South America for a little bit, where I met my buddy here in Rio." He nudges Leatherhead, grinning, and gets an affectionate hair tousle in return. "We came overseas when work got a little hard to find. Saw neat places, did neat stuff. It's been pretty fun. Up until, you know, recently. Speaking of which." He gestures to the gunnysack on the table, and Leatherhead helps him open it up.

Inside is a small armory. Donatello chokes on his next breath, and leans back in his chair involuntarily. Michelangelo snorts to himself, amused at big brother's antics, and moves through the revolvers and hunting knives and—is that _dynamite?_

"Did I miss something?" Donatello asks, more sharply than he intended. "Are we going into _battle?"_

"Don, there's something _out_ there," Michelangelo says, and his tone matches Donatello's exactly. A gentle reminder, if anything, for Don to watch how he talks. They aren't older and younger sibling, anymore, and neither of them knows _more_ than the other; they just know different things, now _._ "Something under the sand."

"Well—yes, hopefully." Donatello hopes his voice sounds even, as he watches Michelangelo dismantle and clean a pistol like he's handled guns all his life. "I'm hoping to find a certain artifact. A book, actually. Casey thinks there's treasure." Michelangelo doesn't speak up right away, watching his hands while he works, and Donatello prompts him carefully, "What do _you_ think is out there?"

"In a word? Evil." Michelangelo says it with a smile, but Donatello _knows_ him, and he isn't joking. He's been out there once already, in the City of the Dead, and Donatello is smart enough not to take his words for granted. "The Bendouin and the Tuaregs believe Hamunaptra is cursed. They call it 'the doorway to hell'."

"'Passageway to the underworld,' actually," Leatherhead corrects amiably, and Michelangelo gestures at him as if to say _'see?'_

"Well—I don't believe in fairy tales," Donatello says slowly, and Michelangelo rolls his eyes.

"Believe me, I know. _You_ told me Santa Claus wasn't real. When I was _six."_

Leatherhead looks like he's hiding a smile, and Donatello reminds himself it probably wouldn't be appropriate to laugh—even though Michelangelo is every inch his aggrieved, annoyed baby brother again. They must have had similar conversations to this one a dozen times.

"But I _do_ believe that one of the most famous books in _history_ is buried down there. The Book of Amun-Ra."

"The Book of the Living," Michelangelo says, smiling at the gleaming cartridge in his hand. "Made out of pure gold, containing all the incantations of the Old Kingdom. You talked about that book _constantly_ when we were little. Drove Raph and Leo absotively crazy."

"Not you, though. You loved listening to the stories I'd tell you about Ancient Egypt. We'd go outside and pretend to dig up pyramids and mummies in our backyard."

"Poor father could never get all those holes filled before we'd be digging new ones. We always promised to come over here together and do it for real. And hey, here we are! Guess it sorta worked out in the end, after all." Donatello's grin freezes on his face, but Michelangelo just huffs out a quiet laugh. "I don't hate you for leaving, Donnie. Really. I know you think I do, that's why you're tiptoeing around me like I'm gonna bite the minute you say something dumb. Your _dreams_ were over here, you always said you'd come to Egypt, and I believed you. But when father died, and you didn't come back _—that's_ when I wanted to hate you. I even tried to. I couldn't, though. And I don't," he adds, meeting Donatello's eyes briefly, bravely. "I just—really missed you. All the time. And you never came back."

"You could have come to me," Donatello all but whispers. "I would never have turned you away."

"Yeah, I know. I could have," Michelangelo concedes with another shrug, going back to work. "Guess I didn't, though."

* * *

Donatello was beginning to think this adventure was more trouble than it was worth. A hooded stranger broke into his and Casey's room on the barge not an hour after they had bid Leatherhead and Michelangelo goodnight—between the two of them, they were more than enough to disarm the hook-handed man, but when he went down he took a table with him, along with the flickering lantern, and the room went up in flames with _ludicrous_ ease.

"Oh, my god," Donatello says faintly, as Casey makes short work of shoving the puzzle box into his pocket and hauling Donatello with him into the hall. They run bodily into Michelangelo and Leatherhead, armed to the teeth and obviously on their way to help, and Donatello seizes his brother. _"Mikey!"_

Michelangelo endures Donatello's hug for all of a moment, patting him on the back distractedly and muffling into his shoulder, "LH and I took care of his buddies, but it looks like you guys had your hands full, too. We gotta go."

"I didn't grab the map," Casey says, stricken, shouldering the gunnysack Michelangelo had dropped, but Leatherhead shakes his head.

"The map is up here," the large man says, tapping his forehead with two fingers. "We know the way. For now, we need to go, quickly."

It was hard to argue that, with the flames licking their way quickly into the hall, and the heavy smoke billowing with them. On deck, men rush to save the horses and some of their more precious cargo—tossing things into the dark riverwater and then jumping in after them. There seems to be fire _everywhere,_ and they don't make it very far before Leatherhead is shoving Michelangelo back into Donatello, who stumbles back into Casey in turn, and orders, _"Stay."_

Then he moves forward, into smoke and chaos and a volley of gunfire, and Michelangelo's face contorts in worry and anger. " _Dammit_ , Leatherhead!" He twists out of Donatello's hold and follows right after him, as disobedient as Donatello remembers from their childhood; and Donatello would have followed in a heartbeat if Casey hadn't grabbed him by the shoulders and kept him back.

"If the Bembridge scholars rejected your application for the _hundredth_ time because you don't have enough experience to go on a godforsaken _dig_ , what the _hell_ good do you think you'll do in an honest to god _firefight?"_ he hisses through his teeth, and not for the first time, Donatello wants to punch him in the mouth.

"I'm not leaving him again," Donatello snaps, yanking out of Casey's grip—his friend cusses colorfully behind him as he ducks around the corner and searches the smokescreen for his brother. Every gunshot is another year shaved off his life until he sees Michelangelo waving at him frantically from the rails alongside the boat. Heart in his throat, and Casey right behind him, Donatello crosses the deck at a run. "No more running off," he says sternly, framing Michelangelo's face in his hands and searching him for any sign of pain. Michelangelo does his best to glare at Leatherhead without turning his head.

"Yeah, I second that notion." When Leatherhead looks unrepentant, scanning the barge with narrowed eyes for any more hostile parties, Michelangelo huffs, and tugs Donatello's hands away from his person to ask, "Can you still swim?"

"Of course I can, if the situation calls for it."

"Trust me, it calls for it," Michelangelo says smartly, grabbing the gunnysack from Casey. He gives Leatherhead a severe look, one that was almost comical given their difference in size, clearly a "you _better_ be right behind me." Then he gives Donatello a nudge, and jumps clean over the railing.

Leatherhead follows right behind him, and Casey spares a moment to say, "Your family is downright crazy," before the fire behind them explodes, and they jump without further ado.

The swim to the bank is cold, and awkward in shoes, but they manage. Michelangelo and Leatherhead beat them to shore, and Michelangelo is buried against Leatherhead's chest, hugging him hard around the waist and muffling something angry and relieved in equal parts against his wet shirt. Leatherhead taps him on the shoulder as Donatello and Casey wade closer, and Michelangelo draws away from his giant friend to meet Donatello in the waist-deep water.

"How's this for adventure, Jones?" he asks from the circle of Donatello's arms, and Casey gives him the finger.

"Hey, Angel!" someone calls from the opposite bank. Donatello strains his eyes through the dark to find a bedraggled-looking Hungarian man leering smugly at them across the water. He's surrounded by the rest of the men from the barge, Donatello's small group the only one to have come out of the river on their side, and shouts, "It looks to me like I've got all the horses!"

"Hey, Beni!" Michelangelo calls back, leaning away from Donatello, imitating Beni's mocking tone. "Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"

Leatherhead laughs, full-bodied, and even Casey stops feeling sorry for himself long enough to crack a grin as Beni starts cursing in his native tongue. Donatello arches an eyebrow at his brother, and wonders if he knows how much he sounds like Raph.

* * *

They make it to a Bendouin trading post the next day, and Leatherhead barters for four camels in calm, level Arabic while Michelangelo plays with a handful of children. Donatello watches his brother crawl through the sand after a giggling little boy, and wonders at how a person can be so different and so familiar at the same time.

"Well, I just paid way too much for these four ugly old fleabags," Casey gripes as he and Leatherhead escort four camels over by their lead ropes. "This treasure of ours better exist, or I'm gonna be destitute."

"That's the spirit," Michelangelo says, climbing to his feet and dusting himself off. He's flushed and smiling as he takes the lead Leatherhead hands him, and his good cheer doesn't wane. They promised each other exploits and escapades when they were little, and Donatello left as soon as he was old enough in pursuit of it. Now he's an aspiring Egyptologist, working in a museum library in Cairo, and Mikey is—a traveler. A grifter. An adventurer. At home in the dunes with the desert dwellers, and alight at the prospect of a day-long travel across the scorching sands, and experienced in things like guns and poker and market trading.

There are stories behind these new facets to Michelangelo's character, and Donatello wants to hear every one. He can't help it; he's a librarian.

* * *

They meet Beni in the morning; Donatello has gleaned that Beni served in the French Foreign Legion alongside Michelangelo and Leatherhead, and betrayed them in the City of the Dead, and now acts as a guide to the American party, leading them back to the ancient temple for a very handsome price.

They watch Hamunaptra appear with the rising sun, shimmering like a mirage. They race, of _course_ they race, the Americans whooping and yelling on horseback, and Donatello laughs when Michelangelo upends Beni off his camel.

And then he keeps laughing, alive in the sun and the whipping wind, the ancient City of the Dead waiting only moments away—his life's pursuit, his childhood dream—

Complete with his brother, grinning at him, from right by his side.

They're the first up the stone ramp into the city, with Leatherhead and Casey not far behind, and it's Casey who shouts over his shoulder, "You boys owe us five hundred bucks!"

* * *

The Americans' team is quick to start hauling the rock out of the temple doorway, but Donatello directs his group to the back of the ruins; near a towering statue of Anubis, a broken pillar and a narrow crevice in the ground that makes Casey go a little pale. Leatherhead agreeably sets to tying a rope around the base of the pillar, while Michelangelo helps Donatello haul around ancient, tarnished mirrors.

"You're meant to _catch_ the sun with it, Mikey," Donatello corrects him, and smiles when he repositions it by a few degrees. "There you are, perfect."

"You're really in your element, huh, Don?" he says, dusting his hands as he hops some rubble on his way over. "What are these mirrors for, anyway?"

"An old Egyption trick," Donatello says gleefully. "You'll see. By all the stars, Mikey, I can't believe we're _here."_

Mikey's smiling at him, a slow, full thing, as though Donatello's delight is catching. Then he remembers himself, and reaches back to pull a worn leather satchel from his waistband. "Oh, uh—I got something for you. I stole it off one of those Americans, actually, figured he wouldn't miss it." He looks a little nervous, handing it over, and adds, "I thought you might need it. For—you know. Since we lost a lot of our stuff when the barge sank."

Nonplussed, Donatello unfolds the satchel, to find an array of excavation tools in his hands—brushes and picks and a small trowel—and _beams._ "It's perfect," he said, dragging Michelangelo by the front of his shirt into a tight hug. "Thanks, little brother."

"Hey, uh, not to ruin your little moment," Casey says a moment later, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. "But d'you mind tellin' me _why_ we gotta go down this hole?"

Michelangelo shifts to stand beside him, and Donatello leaves one arm draped around his shoulders and gestures at the statue of Anubis with his new tool kit; warm and amused and overly fond of everyone in his present company. "That statue there? It's legs go deep underground, and the Bembridge scholars believe that _that_ is where we'll find the secret compartment containing the golden Book of the Living. The crevice will open up to a wide room, Casey, you'll be fine."

* * *

The three-thousand-year-old room they rappel down into turns out to be a preparation room, where the ancient Egyptians made corpses into mummies. Casey is less-than-thrilled about this discovery, whereas Michelangelo can't seem to stop talking about how incredible Donatello's trick with the mirrors was.

"Did you _see,_ Leatherhead, he just lit up the whole room."

"I saw, I saw," the large man says kindly, lighting a few torches and passing them around. "That would have been a helpful trick to know when we were lost in that cavern in Belize."

Michelangelo takes two of the torches and passes one to Donatello, his smile flickering in the firelight. "Next time, Don will have to come with us."

"Absolutely," Donatello says without thinking. And he only realizes he _means_ it when Michelangelo laughs.

The way forward is dim, a stone pathway strung with heavy cobwebs, and they're only partway through and around one corner when a strange, rustling noise picks up. It comes from all around them, like dead leaves caught in a wind, and then just as suddenly it's gone again.

"Bugs," Leatherhead offers at length. Michelangelo shrugs, and they press on, and sooner than Donatello was expecting, the way opens up into a wide room, where the towering legs of Anubis stand. Its base is carved with hieroglyphs, and while the others cast their lights around the room, Donatello crouches in front of the stone.

"The secret compartment should be hidden _somewhere_ inside here," he mutters to himself—but then Leatherhead's wraps a hand around his arm, drawing him back up to his feet, and Michelangelo steps in front of him with a pistol drawn. He passes his torch over wordlessly, and as Donatello takes it from him, he hears what the rest of his group must have heard already—a low moaning, echoing and ambient and decided _ghoulish,_ from the other side of the large stone base of the statue. Michelangelo is tense, and bracing himself for whatever might be around the corner, and before Donatello can suggest they not rush to meet it, he and Leatherhead and Casey all spring around with guns drawn—

And find themselves face-to-face with the Americans, a few of their diggers, and Beni. All of whom look equal parts surprised to see them, and relieved they're not staring down some tomb monster.

"You scared the bejesus out of us, Angel," one of them says, relief clear in his voice. His gun doesn't waver.

"Likewise," Michelangelo agrees, offering a slanting smile; his gun stays up, too.

After a beat of silence, one of the Americans says, "This here's _our_ statue, friend."

"I don't see your name written on it," Michelangelo replies evenly, "pal."

"Yes, well, there's only four of you," Beni is quick to point out, "and _fifteen_ of me. Your odds are not so great, Angel."

"We've had worse," Leatherhead rumbles and Casey isn't flinching, either, offering a solid, "Me, too," that causes Michelangelo to give him a sidelong look. But Donatello has noticed a crack in the floor, and when he shifts a few pebbles into it with his foot, he hears them fall and land in what could only be a hollow chamber of some kind—a room beneath the one they're in.

So he steps forward, inbetween the two parties and closer than he has ever wanted to be to the business end of more guns than he cares to count. "Alright, children," he says, the way he used to break up Raphael and Leonardo's countless, explosive arguments. "If we're going to play together, we have to learn to share. There are _other_ places to dig," he adds, catching Michelangelo's eye; and it's less the argument he's making, less the secret message he's trying to impart, and _more_ the shield he's just created in front of his brother, standing between him and all the Americans' guns, that causes Michelangelo to lower his and nod.

Ah, well. Whatever works.

* * *

And that is how they find themselves taking sledgehammers to a ceiling of an ancient chamber, under the statue of Anubis. They'll dig their way up while those _dirty Yanks_ are asleep _—"_ no offense," Casey offers as an afterthought, while Michelangelo and Donatello share an amused look—and steal the book right out from under their noses.

While they work, Michelangelo asks questions. He's as curious as Donatello remembers, and the more time they spend together, the more the little brother Donatello once knew seems to surface. He's happy to answer Michelangelo's questions, and can't help grinning at the green look on his friends' faces as he describes—in more detail than necessary, honestly—the extensive process of mummification.

He's just gotten to explaining how they removed the corpse's brain, struggling to maintain his straight face while Casey and Michelangelo exchange horrified expressions, when part of the ceiling starts to give way. _Right above_ where Michelangelo is standing—

A slab of the ceiling falls, and something along with it, with a jarring crash, stirring up enough dust to obscure the whole chamber for a few moments. Donatello scrambles right over the rubble, heart in his throat, and he could _cry_ in relief when he finally spots Leatherhead crouching protectively over his little brother, obviously having plucked him out of harm's way.

"Oh, that was close," Michelangelo says, unruffled. He reaches up to pat Leatherhead's chest, grinning. "Thanks, buddy."

"What is this?" Casey says, already moving forward to inspect the new addition to the room. "It looks like a—woah."

"A sarcophagus." Donatello's eyes are wide. "For him to have been buried at the feet of Anubis, he must have been extremely important. Or… extremely wicked."

"Or both," Michelangelo says, feeling along the dusty surface with his fingers. "I think there's some hieroglyphs here, Donnie."

Donatello unrolls his kit, and catches Michelangelo grinning at him when he takes one of the brushes to the surface of the sarcophagus, carefully clearing away the thick layer of dirt and grime and taking in the etched writing.

"So, who is it?" Casey asks, peering over his shoulder. Donatello frowns.

"'He That Shall Not Be Named.' That certainly isn't helpful."

"Look here," Leatherhead says, wiping dust away from a strangely-shaped depression in the stone, like an eight-pointed star. "It's like some sort of lock."

"Oh!" Michelangelo grins, thumping the sarcophagus in his sudden excitement. "Donnie, the puzzle box! It opens into a shape like this, do you have it?"

"I do," Casey says, dumping his pack off his shoulder and rifling through it. He finds it after a moment and tosses it over to Donatello, who catches it deftly. Michelangelo's excitement is rubbing off on him, and he's grinning when he opens the box and fits it into the lock perfectly. "Alright, this is arguably incredible."

But if it opens the sarcophagus or not, they don't find out—because somewhere above them, echoing throughout the labyrinth, people are screaming in terror and pain; and the four of them share a brief look before grabbing their things—and their key—and running for the door.

* * *

"So," Michelangelo says, when he joins them by the fire, "all that yelling from before turned out to be the result of an Ancient Egyptian booby trap. Three of the Americans' diggers were, um… melted."

" _What?"_

" _How?"_

"Salt acid. _Pressurized_ salt acid. Have you ever even heard of that?" he says grimly, sitting down next to Leatherhead and stealing half of his blanket.

"Maybe this place really _is_ cursed," Casey says quietly, and Donatello rolls his eyes skyward.

"For god's sake, you two."

"Don't believe in curses, huh?"

"No, I don't," Donatello says. "I believe if I can see, and I can touch it, _then_ it's real."

Michelangelo shrugs, stoking the fire with a stick, then offers his friends a sideways smile. "Well, I believe in stuff you can't see and touch."

"And I believe in being prepared," Leatherhead adds, patting the rifle that lay across his lap. Michelangelo grins at him, but it fades at the distant sound of whinnying horses, and after a moment he sheds his half of the blanket and climbs to his feet.

"Stay here," he says to Donatello, just before he and Leatherhead slip over the rocks and into the night.

"Wait a minute— _Mikey!"_

"Don, I swear to god, they said _stay here!"_

The American camp is under siege by a few dozen hooded riders. Michelangelo and Leatherhead waste no time joining the fray, for all their decided dislike of the opposite band of treasure hunters, and Donatello pumps the rifle Leatherhead had left beside the fire with no small amount of determination.

He'd watched Mikey take this gun apart and put it back together again, and Donatello, at the very least, knows how to point and pull the trigger.

"Dumb bastard," Casey hisses, cramming cartridges into his pocket. "Will you at least look where you're going when you run after your brother toward the jaws of death?"

"If I know where I'm going, why bother?" he replies breathlessly, raising the rifle to his shoulder. He's lost Michelangelo in this whole mess, but the more of those black-cloaked riders he manages to take down, the safer his brother will be.

The battle goes on for what feels like mere moments—it can't have been very long—and Donatello has downed three men, and Casey, at his shoulder, has downed four, when suddenly they seem to reach a standstill. The riders and the campers both cease movement, all of them looking inwards towards the campfire, and—of course. There is Michelangelo, staring down a rider. The rider is armed with a scimitar, and Michelangelo is holding a stick of dynamite, the fuse lit and sparking.

 _Of course he is,_ Donatello thinks faintly. _Of course that's what he's doing._

"Enough," the rider finally says, standing down. "We will shed no more blood tonight, but you must leave. Leave this place or die. You have one day."

And as quickly as they had arrived, the riders were gone again, disappearing with their horses into the black desert night. Donatello tosses the elephant gun down and races across the trashed campsite to his brother, who removes the fuse from the dynamite in a jerking, methodical motion. He stares out after the riders, and only looks up when Donatello reaches him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

Michelangelo grins, but anything he might have said is interrupted when one of the Americans whoops.

"See? That _proves_ it. Old Seti's fortune's _gotta_ be under this sand," the man crows.

"For them to protect it like this, you just _know_ there's treasure down there," one of his companions agrees. Michelangelo's grin fades into a frown, and his eyes trace their way back to the trail the riders left behind.

"These men are a desert people," Leatherhead says from Michelangelo's side, following his smaller friend's line of sight. "They value water, not gold. They would not be this territorial over something as simple as treasure."

That statement is more than a little unnerving, and Donatello's grip on his brother's shoulder tightens as Casey comes to join their small cluster by the ruined wall. At that point, one of the Americans _casually_ suggests combining their forces at night, and at the very least, the man dispels the tension in the air. Casey snorts and Leatherhead cracks a smile, while Michelangelo says, very magnanimously, "If it'll help you sleep tonight, friend, we'd be glad to."

* * *

They liberate a bottle of Glenlivet from the Americans that night, and share it four ways. Well, mostly _two_ ways, as Michelangelo and Leatherhead each take a swig and then leave Casey and Donatello the rest; watching with wide, amused grins on their faces as their two companions drink themselves past the point of no return.

Come morning light, Donatello is in pain, _brutally_ hung-over, and walks with his eyes shaded from the sun; clutching the back of Leatherhead's jacket like a child.

"Just lead me blind," Donatello half-begs.

"Do what he says, Leatherhead," Michelangelo says very seriously, so seriously Donatello knows he's being made fun of even if he doesn't know how. "He's a _librarian."_

Leatherhead laughs softly, and Donatello frowns.

"I cannot _believe_ I let you three get me drunk."

"Hey, don't blame me," Casey mutters bleakly, "I don't even remember being there."

The cool, musty dark of the labyrinth is a blessing, and Donatello lets go of Leatherhead once they make it to the chamber they left their sarcophagus in. He can ignore the pounding headache one he lays eyes on it again, the thrill of discovery sweeping over him. Together with Michelangelo, the two of them prop the sarcophagus upright against the wall, and Donatello says gleefully, "I've dreamed about this since I was a child."

"You dreamed of dead guys?" Casey asks gibly. Donatello chooses to ignore him.

"Look here—all the sacred spells have been chiseled off. There are hieratics and hieroglyphs that protect the deceased on their journey to the afterlife, but his have been _removed_. This man must have been condemned, not only in _this_ life, but in the afterlife, too. This man was _doomed."_

The statement sits in the air between the four of them for a moment, and then Casey and Michelangelo are shrugging.

"Tough break."

"Yeah, I'm all tears." Casey fits their puzzle box key into the lock on the stone coffin and twists as far as it will allow. "Now let's see who's inside, shall we?"

Even with two of them on either side, it's a moment of hard pulling before the lid finally comes apart from the rest of the coffin; it falls with a slam, releasing another cloud of dust, and the mummy comes falling halfway out before it catches, empty-eyed and slack-jawed. Only Leatherhead maintains composure, where the rest of them jump away yelping or yelling, and Donatello shouts, "I _hate_ when these things do that!"

"Is he supposed to look like that?" Michelangelo asks in horrified fascination, and Donatello comes close again.

"No—I've never seen a mummy look like this before. He's still—still—"

"Juicy," Casey and Michelangelo offer in disgusted unison, and there's really no better word for it.

" _Yes_. He must be _three thousand_ years old, and he's still _decomposing_." There is no way, scientifically, for this to make any sense.

"Donnie, look," Michelangelo says, crouching by the fallen lid of the sarcophagus. He's running his fingers over some desperate etching in the stone, long, thin drags from what looks like— "Fingernails," he says, looking up at his brother through the gloom. "He was buried alive in there, wasn't he?"

"There's something else here," Casey says, squinting at some crude hieroglyphs carved into the stone as well. "Looks like our man here left a message." His working knowledge of the language is rudimentary, at best, but he still manages to translate, " _'Death is only the beginning.'_ Well, that's cheerful."

* * *

On his way back to the campfire that night, Donatello can't help but notice the Americans' Egyptologist struggling with a heavy, bound, black book. There's a depression in the front that matches the one on their sarcophagus, an eight-pointed star, and Donatello's breath catches.

The other man wraps his arms around it when he sees Donatello looking, and Donatello raises both hands in friendly surrender.

"Don't mind me. But uh… I think you'll need a _key_ to open that book," he says amiably, and strides toward the campfire with a smile on his face.

The Americans are sitting to one side of the fire, poking fun at Michelangelo, Casey and Leatherhead's "nice, gooey mummy" discovery. Michelangelo hears Donatello coming, and kicks Beni, who's sitting beside him, on the leg.

"You're in Don's spot."

Which seems a little unnecessary, given that there's plenty of space around the fire for all of them, but it's gratifying that Michelangelo wants Donatello near him. So he sits in the space Beni vacated, and smiles when Michelangelo scoots closer to share his blanket.

"Look what I've got," Donatello says, holding out his hands. Leatherhead and Casey lean closer from either side, straining to see his prize in the firelight. "Scarab skeletons. Flesh eaters. I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for _years_ feasting on the flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend, he was still _alive_ when they started eating him."

Michelangelo picks one up, turning it over carefully in his hands. "So, somebody threw these in with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?"

Donatello can't help but notice the Americans have gone silent, and smiles widely for their benefit. " _Very_ slowly."

"I'd hate to be as popular as this fellow," Casey says, shoving Donatello's hand away when he offered one of the dusty dead beetles to him. "Get away from me, you're disgusting. Put those down."

Laughing, Donatello collects all the little specimens and sets them in a pile on the packed sand at their feet. "Well, according to my research, I think our friend suffered the Hom-Dai. It was the worst of all the ancient Egyptian curses—I've never heard of this curse _actually_ being performed, they feared it so much. It's written that, should a victim of the Hom-Dai ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt."

"You tell the _best_ bedtime stories, Donnie," Michelangelo says, before the silence can stretch into something too eerie and uncomfortable. "I feel all restful inside, and definitely not like my life is in some kind of creepy, cryptic danger."

"Well, that's what I'm here for."

* * *

Okay, so, arguably, in retrospect, reading from the Book of the Dead that he _borrowed_ from the Egyptologist was probably a really stupid idea. _No harm ever came from reading a book,_ he said. Famous last words, apparently.

Michelangelo's hand is in his, his little brother all but dragging him to the relative safety of the temple. There's a steady swarm of locust behind them, like a massive, buzzing black cloud, and they appeared _moments_ after Donatello read a few lines from the first page of the book.

Michelangelo lights a torch, and lets go of Donatello to grab Leatherhead's arm, searching the man's face in the dim light. "You okay, buddy?"

"I am fine. I think it is urgent we press on."

"Yeah, I think so, too. Casey, you good?"

"'Good' is kind of a strong word," Donatello's friend mutters, and Michelangelo seems to take that as a 'yes,' and he leads the way into the labyrinth. A far cry from his earlier, gung-ho enthusiasm, he moves carefully, casting the light before he takes a step and testing his footing. He's quiet, and alert, Leatherhead moving next to him like a silent shadow, and still, they both jump when a part of the floor just ahead of them raises, spilling sand—

And out pour Scarab beetles. _A lot_ of Scarab beetles. They turn tail immediately, running the opposite direction, and Michelangelo only stops once, to blow the front of the advancing swarm away with two shots from his elephant gun, giving his group enough time to make it up a stone ramp; Donatello jumps to one side, catching himself on a small ledge, while Casey, Leatherhead and Michelangelo leap onto a raised, level platform.

The beetles scurry past them, up the stairway into the rest of the labyrinth, and Donatello leans against the wall in relief.

And then the wall gives way, like a trapdoor, and he falls through; but he doesn't fall _far._ After a dizzying few seconds, he lands in a heap in a corridor he doesn't recognize. He feels along the wall for a moment, trying to get his bearings, and hears a moan from around the corner behind him.

Swallowing, and trying to borrow his absent brother's devilish courage, he turns and follows the sound to find one of the Americans standing in the middle of an empty chamber. He presses a hand to his chest, heaving a relieved sigh.

"Oh, Mr. Burns," he says, approaching with a small smile. "Thank god. I'm so glad to see a familiar face."

But Mr. Burns turns around, mouth distended in another drawn, agonized moan, and Donatello staggers back from him, bile rising to his throat. His familiar face had been brutalized, two gaping holes where his eyes should have been, and he lumbers a few steps after Donatello in despair, before falling, disoriented, to the ground.

"My eyes," he sobs, garbled, clutching his face, "my eyes. And my, my tongue, he took my tongue."

"Who," Donatello whispers, horrified, torn between offering some sort of help and running far, far away. "Who did this?"

But quick steps behind him propel Donatello around, and he's face to face with their friend from the sarcophagus, He That Shall Not Be Named, _moving,_ alive, and looking at Donatello with Mr. Burns' stolen eyes. He roars, there's no better word for it, and Donatello is almost numb with terror.

He backs up, slowly, against an ornate, dust-covered wall, trembling while the mummy advances. It speaks, some strangled, distorted Old Egyptian, and Donatello forgets how to breathe. It isn't going to spare him; there's no room for mercy in a creature who steals a living man's eyes.

" _There_ you are!" a beloved voice shouts from close by, and Michelangelo appears from as good as nowhere, lively and bright-eyed and scowling. "Quit playing hide-and-seek, Don, we gotta— _woah!"_

He flattens himself against the wall next to his brother, pale with fear, and Donatello has the presence of mind to throw an arm out in front of him. He might be a useless brother in every other regard, and he might not have been there for him when it really mattered, but now, at the very least, this cursed mummy will have to go through _him_ to touch Michelangelo.

And it looks like it's willing to do so. It lumbers a step forward with another roar, and then, without warning, Leatherhead is there; roaring right back, and plugging it with two shots from Michelangelo's discarded elephant gun.

" _Move!"_ the large man shouts, shoving Donatello by the shoulder, and waiting for Casey to dart by before following the three of them. Donatello thinks he can hear the remaining Americans behind him, but he's light-headed with some complicated, strangled combination of fear, relief and pure adrenaline, and focuses on nothing but moving his feet, and keeping a grip on his brother.

They pour out of the temple doors into the crisp night air, and scramble to an abrupt halt, breathing fast.

The black-cloaked riders are back, armed with rifles this time instead of scimitars, and fan out in a wall that stands between the adventurers and any hope of escape. The Egyptologist is with them, clutching the Book of the Dead and shaking like a leaf, visibly flinching when the leader of the riders cocks his gun.

"I told you to leave or die," the man says levelly. "You refused. And now you may have killed us all. You have unleashed a creature that we have feared for more than three thousand years."

"Be calm," Leatherhead says, as calm as ever, even while staring down a small army. "I killed him."

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He's not of this world." He steps aside as two of his men bring Burns forward—and how they got him out of the temple without running into that mummy monster, Donatello has no clue. They carry him to his friends, who group around him in the sand, and the man says, "We saved him, before the creature could finish his work. Now leave, all of you. Quickly. Before he finishes you all."

Donatello's grip on Michelangelo is probably bruising at this point, as the man speaks in rapid Arabic, and his men march forward, moving around their group and into the temple. They're going to _hunt_ it, before it can do anymore harm.

"Know this," their leader says, before he follows. "This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop.

* * *

"Why are you being so _stubborn_ about this?"

"I'm— _I'm_ being stubborn? _I'm_ being stubborn?"

The last thing Donatello wants to do is fight with Michelangelo. All he wants is to load up his brother and his books and his cat (she took to Mikey at once, Donatello knew she would, cats always did), then grab Casey and Leatherhead, and take the first ship to _anywhere_.

But Michelangelo, to no one's surprise, has different ideas. "You can't just _leave,"_ he says, flabbergasted. "This is all our fault. _You're_ the one who read from that stupid book. And now you're gonna run away 'cause you're scared?"

"Mikey—"

"The whole world is gonna end—what, is that just not your problem, now? You live here, too!"

" _Mikey—"_

"So we can't use mortal weapons to kill him. Let's just find some _immortal_ ones. We can go to that library where you work, we can—"

"Michelangelo!" Donatello grabs him by the shoulders to stop his pacing, stooping a little to meet his eyes. "This is bigger than you and I. This is otherworldly. This is _impossible._ I agree that we should take responsibility; I agree that this is my fault. But surely you understand that the right move here is to get some distance—to take our health and knowledge far from here, for now, until we can come up with a plan? So that we have a fighting chance?"

But Michelangelo is unmoved. His eyes are hard and steely, and he shrugs Donatello's hands off sharply.

"No," he says bitterly, letting honest hurt show for the first time since Donatello found him in that Cairo prison. "Cause I _know_ you. And when you leave, you don't come back."

Donatello drops his hands, heart aching, and silence reigns between them for all of a moment.

And then, from down the hall, someone screams. Michelangelo is already out the door, shouting for Leatherhead, before Donatello can peace together what that must mean. "Mikey?" He hurries after him, and trips over the steamer trunk he had started to pack earlier, slamming into the desk beside the window and knocking over the glass of water he had left there.

Or, it was once water. Now it's something dark red, and dripping languidly onto the hardwood floor, and Donatello feels his stomach turn.

 _And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red and were as blood._

"He's here," Donatello whispers, stricken, running faster than he had even with the Scarab beetles behind him. Outside the windows, there's an overcast of dark, heavy clouds, and fire falling from the sky like rain. "And my fool of a brother is off to meet him."

Finding Michelangelo is as easy as following the gunfire, and Donatello pushes two heavy doors open in time to watch Michelangelo get thrown bodily into the two remaining Americans, while Casey and Leatherhead take up firing at the mummy creature. It must have followed them here from Hamunaptra—and if the shriveled corpse of Mr. Burns, in the chair by the fireplace, is anything to go by, the mummy is only getting stronger. It roars, and advances, and then spots Donatello—and then _speaks._

" _You raised me from the dead,"_ it says, in halting Old Egyptian, and while Donatello finds himself rooted to the spot, he finds he's becoming alarmingly accustomed to the sight of this reanimated corpse. It isn't quite the same scare as it was the first time. He's still terrified of it, though. _"I thank you."_

"Not my brother, you bastard," Michelangelo grits out, one arm wrapped around his stomach and the other leveling his rifle at chest-height as he lurches over, putting himself in front of Donatello, and right in the path of the monster. He doesn't understand the mummy's dead language, but at this point it doesn't truly matter _what_ the creature says. " _Never_ him."

It screeches, in what sounds like pure frustration, and Donatello has just a moment to think _Mikey has that effect on people,_ before the mummy points a rotten finger at Michelangelo and says, _"Then it will be_ you."

But a few notes from the piano have Donatello's eyes darting over to that corner of the room, where his cat is sitting idly on the ivory keys, and the mummy shrieks, and backpedals in instant fear, disappearing in a whirl of sand that sweeps out the window into the biblical storm.

Michelangelo sags a moment later, the fight gone out of him with the enemy gone, and Donatello supports him as best he can before he can slide to the ground.

"Get off," Michelangelo mutters, trying to pull away. "Don't."

"I'm not going to just let you fall down," Donatello argues, amazed at his brother's mulishness, and Leatherhead slides his pistol into the waistband of his pants and crosses the room at a stride.

"I'll take him," the dark-skinned man says, and Michelangelo goes to him without argument. "Donatello," Leatherhead continues, when Donatello just sits there staring at his brother—who one moment is facing down an ancient cursed monster to protect him, and the next won't so much as accept his help to stand. "We need answers."

"Yes," Donatello says belatedly. "Yes, I think I know where to go."

* * *

The museum curator and the masked rider from the desert were friends. That makes sense. Donatello is beginning to regret his chosen career.

"We're a part of an ancient secret society," the curator says, pacing, while Donatello and the rest of them gather in a disheveled, tired heap inside a roped-off display. "For over three-thousand-years we have guarded the City of the Dead, doing anything and everything within our power to stop the High Priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world. And because of you, we have failed!"

"That explains why you killed my map the other day," Casey pipes up, without vigor. Donatello waves an arm angrily.

"And you think your _secret order_ is reason enough to go around murdering innocent people?"

"To stop this creature?" The curator sounds incredulous at Donatello's question, and he and the Medjai exclaim together, " _Yes_!"

"Why doesn't he like cats?" Michelangelo asks, sitting next to Leatherhead on top of a tomb display, like nothing about that is disrespectful. "They're the guardians of the underworld, but—he's already dead."

"He will fear them until he's finished regenerating," the curator explains. And the American men shuffle anxiously at the reminder—they're the ones who opened the cursed chest, despite their Egyptologist's warning, and they're the ones Imhotep will feast upon to finish regenerating. Like poor Mr. Burns.

"When I saw him alive at Hamunapatra," Donatello says suddenly, "he said something, and it was a little garbled, but I think he mentioned the name _Anck-su-namun._ Does that mean anything?"

"Yes," the Medjai says slowly. "It is because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed. Perhaps he is going to try to raise her from the dead."

"For that, he would need a human sacrifice," the curator replies, looking more thoughtful than rightfully alarmed. He glances at Donatello, and asks, "He chose you?"

"He—he thanked me." Cool horror pools in his stomach, as if he'd swallowed ice, and his hands fold into fists that shook. "And then he chose my brother."

 _My fool of a brother, who was only trying to protect me._

"Knowing this _might_ give us the time we need to kill this wretched creature."

"We will need all the help we can get," the Medjai says, eyes cast upwards toward the skylight. The sun is going into eclipse at an unnatural speed, the day growing dark all around them. "His powers are growing."

 _And he stretched forth his hands towards the heavens, and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt_ _._


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: And here's the second half of this ridiculous AU. I'm glad everyone has enjoyed it! There might be more eventually... There is a movie sequel, plus an additional cartoon series, left for me to mangle... We'll see!

* * *

From the window, Donatello can just make out the British soldiers lining the walls of the fort. The late day is still dark as night, the desert beyond the walls practically a black void.

"Okay, so the Egyptologist is one of the guys who opened the cursed chest back in Hamunaptra, right? The one the black book was in?" Michelangelo asks the Americans, while Leatherhead patches him up. The expanse of his bare chest is littered with faint, raised scars and burns that look years old; Donatello does his best not to stare at them. "Was there anyone else? What about Beni?"

"Nah, Beni scurried out of there before we opened the damn thing. He was the smart one," one of the two remaining Americans replies. His name is Henderson, Donatello learns, and he's more of a stereotypical Western cowboy than Donatello cares think about. He and Daniels are sticking close to each other, eyeing everything that makes a whisper of a sound or glints oddly in the light with suspicious scrutiny, and Donatello doesn't blame them.

Were he the target of an ancient curse, he would probably be paranoid, too.

"That sounds like Beni," Leatherhead says dryly, and Michelangelo nods, then winces as the larger man finishes wrapping his stomach. "Alright, my friend. That fall you took exacerbated some of the wounds you earned in prison. I would say 'don't overexert yourself,'" Leatherhead adds, "but I know better at this point than to waste my breath."

"That's what I like to hear," Michelangelo says, flashing a grin as he threads his arms back through the long sleeves and tugs the length of the shirt down over the bandages. "So it looks like our next move is to find this scholar of yours before our mummy buddy does. Chamberlain, you said his name was?"

He hops off the table, shrugging on his jacket, but doesn't make it a step before Donatello is standing in his way.

"If you think _you're_ going, you have another think coming," Donatello says sternly. Michelangelo looks stunned by him for a split second, and then his blue eyes are guarded and his face is split by a disingenuous smile.

"And who the hell made you the boss?"

There's something festering between them now, something ugly and wounded and seven years in the making. Michelangelo was hurt more by the hand he was dealt by his family when they left him than Donatello thinks even _he_ knows; and he was hurt again by Donatello's earlier, thoughtless desire to run away. It's all clear in the way Michelangelo stands now—challenging, and scornful, and fiercely afraid of failure.

He went back to the brink of _Hell_ for Donatello, back to a godforsaken temple half-buried in the Sahara where he _knew_ something evil lurked under the sand; all for the sake of sharing an adventure with Donatello, like the ones they promised they would have together when they were young. And now he's marked by an ancient curse, and doomed to death, and his big brother—who should be making it _better—_ is making him feel hateful and cornered and scared.

His big brother is the cause of this mess in the first place.

"You're hurt," Donatello says after a long moment of silence. "And you're a target. You stay here."

" _You_ don't get to decide what I do," Michelangelo bites out. His fists are shaking, and it almost kills Donatello. He's twenty-one, he shouldn't be about to die. " _You_ woulda been done for five times over if it wasn't for me. _You—"_

" _I_ ," Donatello interrupts, stepping into his space and framing his shoulders with both hands, " _love_ you. More than anything else in this world. You are _infinitely_ more precious to me than any treasure I might ever find, and I'm only sorry it's taken me this long to understand that." Michelangelo blinks wide eyes, his barriers broken by the naked sincerity in Donatello's voice. The fight goes clean out of him, and he's suddenly closer to the baby brother Donatello left behind; staring at Donatello like he's seeing him clearly for the first time.

He tips their foreheads together, holding him tight. Hoping to impress upon the gods and the ancient spirits and the universe itself how _deserving_ Michelangelo is of their protection, if only because he is so cherished.

Hoping to impress upon Michelangelo, at least in a small way, just how much he means what he says.

"No matter what I have to do, I am going to earn back your faith in me," he says quietly. "We'll fix this mess we've made, I swear it. So just do this for me, Mikey, _please_. Stay here."

After a moment that feels like a millennium, the fight goes out of his little brother.

"Fine," Michelangelo says, looking down, then away. " _Fine._ I'll stay here and keep an eye on Henderson and Daniels in case the creep comes back. But take Jones with you, Donnie. And—" He turns to his friend, beseeching. "Leatherhead, would you—"

"Of course," the giant man rumbles, sliding a second gun into his waistband alongside his favorite revolver. He tousles Michelangelo's hair on his way to the door, hauling a reluctant-looking Casey with him by the shoulder of his coat.

"Lock the doors," Donatello tells Daniels severely before he leaves. "No one comes in, no one goes out. Got it?"

"Got it," the man says easily. Michelangelo lifts his elephant gun off the table, tucking it into the crook of his arm, and offers Donatello a small, sideways smile and a half-hearted salute; clearly, an _"I'll be fine"._ And Donatello sets out into the unnatural night with two companions armed to the teeth, and one burning, driving thought in mind:

 _I have to make this right._

* * *

The door to Chamberlain's office is thrown open, and Beni is tearing drawers out of his desk and upending their contents onto the floor; picture frames, books and papers—the Egyptologist's whole life—lay strewn across the thin carpet like garbage while Beni ransacks the room, and Donatello finds himself _hating_ this cowardly little man.

"Hello, Beni," Leatherhead says, in a voice like ice, as he enters the room with a few long strides. "Let me guess: spring cleaning?"

His tone gives _Donatello_ pause, and they're on the same side. Beni actually whimpers, and makes a break for the window on the far side of the room. Casey ducks to one side as Leatherhead grabs a wooden chair by the arm and _hurls_ it, catching Beni in the middle of the back and sending him to the floor in an undignified heap.

"Oh, nice shot," Casey says, clearly impressed. Leatherhead pays him no mind, grabbing Beni by the suspenders and hauling him off the ground. He throws the smaller man against the wall, his feet a few inches off the ground, and Donatello thinks the wall actually cracked from the amount of force.

"You came back from the desert with a new friend, didn't you, Beni?" Leatherhead asks, unnatural green eyes glinting. He looks almost like a primeval reptile of some kind, stalking its lesser, unfortunate prey; Beni must be thinking along the same lines, because he's as pale as a ghost, pawing uselessly at Leatherhead's arms where they're planted like trees against his chest.

This is Michelangelo's friend, who has traveled with him for years; who went with him to Belize, and Egypt, and prison, and war. Donatello has seen him carry Michelangelo when he couldn't walk, and cover him with a blanket in the coldest part of a desert night, and Donatello knows in some unspoken, instinctive way, that this cruel side of him is only more proof of his caring. Michelangelo is in danger, and Leatherhead is acting on that fact and that fact alone.

And so Donatello stands by, arms folded, and lets the scene play out. He owes Beni no favors, anyway.

"What friend?" Beni chokes out, with a weak attempt at charm. "You and Angel are my only friends."

Leatherhead's face wrinkles in disgust, and in one sweeping move, he swings Beni away from the wall and down against the desk, so hard it knocks the breath out of him.

"What are you doing with this _monster,_ Beni? What's in it for you? There is _always_ something in it for you."

"It is better to be the right hand of the devil, than in his path," the Hungarian says faintly. "As long as I serve him, I am immune."

"Immune from _what?"_ Donatello asks from over Leatherhead's shoulder, and the pinned man mutters something in his mother tongue Donatello doesn't catch. Whatever it is causes Leatherhead to snarl, and draw his balisong knife from a sleeve on his belt. He flicks it open and presses the blade against Beni's throat.

"What are you looking for here? And do not lie to me," Leatherhead says quietly. Beni looks too frightened to lie.

"The book! The black book they found at Hamunaptra!" he yelps, craning as far back as he can from the blade. "He wants it back! He said to me it would be worth its weight in gold!"

"What does he want the book for?" Casey snaps from where he's keeping watch by the door, gun drawn.

"I—I don't know, something about bringing his dead girlfriend back to life. But that's all! He just wants the book, I swear! Just the book, I swear!" Leatherhead considers this for a long moment before he leans back, sheathing his knife again and dragging Beni to his feet. Upright, Beni glances at Donatello sidelong. "...Along with your brother."

Leatherhead growls at him, and Beni cries out when the grip on his shoulder turns crushing, but a scream from outside draws their attention to the door. Beni, the slimy worm that he is, takes their momentary distraction as a window of opportunity, and flings himself out of Leatherhead's grasp. Donatello scrambles to grab him, but the man jumps the desk and leaps out the window.

"Crazy bastard," Casey says as he crosses the room to them at a run, and Leatherhead leans out the broken window frame with a look of distaste.

"There's our Egyptologist," he says, standing back so Donatello can look out beside him. "And there's our priest, as well."

Chamberlain is a shriveled husk on the street, recognizable only by his familiar wardrobe, and a figure in tattered black robes stands over him. The crowd in the Bazaar is gasping and fearful, drawing away, and as the people move back, Donatello catches sight the black book under Imhotep's arm; watches the monster pry a jeweled canopic jar out of Chamberlain's decomposed hand.

Then the mummy turns, and Donatello's breath catches; Imhotep's face is more _human,_ having consumed what he wanted from poor Chamberlain, and at this point the creature is more flesh than skeleton. He stares at them from the street, so inhuman that Donatello has no idea what to expect—

And then, with a guttural growl, he unhinges his jaw. A buzzing, swarming black cloud of flies streams out of his mouth, straight for them, and with an alarmed yell, Casey slams the window shutters closed.

"This is a _living nightmare_ ," he says with feeling, locking the window in a panic. "That's two down, two to go—" He hesitates, and Donatello spins around to face Leatherhead, eyes wide.

"And then he'll be going after Mikey."

* * *

Henderson is dead when they race back to their rooms in the fort, strewn across the floor of the foyer, and Daniels is nowhere to be found. Donatello leads the way toward the bedroom at a run, heart in his throat, following the sounds of a desperate struggle.

His brother is pinned to the floor against the wall, his elephant gun clutched sideways in both hands across his chest, as he attempts to heave the mummy off of him.

"Get _offa_ me, you damned maggoty piece of—"

 _"Mike!"_ Leatherhead roars, entering the room like a tidal wave. Imhotep looks up, and he has regenerated even more after taking Henderson, only a few touches of rot left in his face. Mikey is struggling to breathe underneath him, wriggling madly, and Donatello crosses the room to him at a run without thinking.

Imhotep bellows something foul-sounding in his dead language, and cranes toward Donatello with evil intent in his stolen eyes; but Casey plugs him in the face with two rounds from his pistol, distracting him just long enough for Leatherhead to use every ounce of his weight and solid muscle to pile-drive the monster away from Michelangelo.

Donatello is beside him not a second later, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and hauling him upright, bracing him while he heaves for air. They both look up in time to watch as Leatherhead is thrown across the room, right into Casey and through the bedroom door, landing in a pile of splintered wood.

And Imhotep's head whips around unnaturally, like a snapping rubber band, pinning the two brothers with his stare. He opens his mouth, jaw distended, and Michelangelo scrambles for his elephant gun—

Only to end up with an armful of _cat_ instead _,_ as Donatello's petal-white pet leaps from the bed to Michelangelo's aid, her ears folded flat against her head and her tongue curled, hissing wrath at the monster.

Like before, the reaction is instantaneous; Imhotep recoils with a shriek, and disappears into a pillar of sand. Donatello ducks his head, curling around Michelangelo and his cat as a roaring wind fills the room, sucking the sand out through the window and into the night. The shutters slam shut in the sand's wake, and the room is abruptly silent.

The four of them lay in place for a long moment, taking stock and catching their breath, and then Donatello has Michelangelo by the chin, turning his face up. "Are you alright?"

"I'm not sure," Casey groans from across the room, shoving Leatherhead's arm off his chest. "Ask me again later."

Rolling his eyes, and smiling a little, Michelangelo tilts his face out of Donatello's grasp. "I'm fine. It all happened all at once, I can't even tell you how fast everything went to hell. Daniels went off to get a drink, because he damn well doesn't listen—and I couldn't fight that mummy creep off of Henderson, I _tried—"_

"I know you did," Donatello says, because Michelangelo always does. His brother blinks, then nods, almost to himself, and his eyes fall to the ball of purring cat that's cuddled to his chest. Despite the gravity of the situation, a smile works itself onto Michelangelo's face, and he pets the cat behind the ears. "Remind me to buy Socrates a can of sardines for saving your life," Donatello adds, and Michelangelo laughs outright.

"Socrates? Seriously? You poor thing." He kisses her nose. "I'll call you Socks."

* * *

The ride to the Museum of Antiquities is a quiet one; Michelangelo is in the front, between Casey and Donatello, and Leatherhead is in the back with Daniels.

(Daniels hasn't said a word since he came back from the bar and found Henderson's body on the floor. Donatello suspects there's a multitude of reasons behind his silence: sorrow for his friends, guilt he was unable to save them, fear of Imhotep consuming him in the way he consumed the others—and a decided fear of Leatherhead, too, who made it _abundantly_ clear how _unimpressed_ he was with Daniels leaving Michelangelo and Henderson to fend against the monster on their own, for the sake of a stiff drink. Daniels is sitting as far from Leatherhead as he can, which isn't far at all, considering they're sharing the back seat.)

Casey parks his convertible haphazardly, and by the time they clamber out of the car, the curator and the Medjai are waiting for them by the door.

Donatello leads the way through the museum at a run, the rest of his group right behind him. "Last month, I found an inscription that mentioned the Book of the Dead. At the time, I dismissed it, because I was unwilling to believe in the idea of bringing the dead back to life—"

"Fairy tales," Michelangelo says, sounding a little smug, and Donatello rolls his eyes. He skids to a stop in front of the display cases and yanks them open.

"I _still_ don't believe in Santa Claus," he says archly, "but I _do_ believe that Imhotep is going to use the black book to resurrect his dead lover."

"And then, together with her, he will bring the apocalypse," the Medjai says darkly. Donatello waves a hand, unimpressed by the desert dweller's theatrics, and run his fingers over the stone tablet as he translates the hieroglyphs under his breath.

"If legend has it right," he mutters, "and the black book can bring people back to life—"

"Then maybe the gold book can _kill_ him," the curator says, crouching next to him. "That's the myth."

"I'm willing to operate on a little faith here," Casey puts in, moving cautiously toward the window. There's commotion outside, and a faraway chanting that's growing louder and louder, and Casey swears when he finally works up the courage to peer out into the museum driveway. "Don, we got company."

"I'm _busy,_ Jones," Donatello snaps, almost losing his place in the reading. He sees Michelangelo move away out of his peripheral vision, probably to join Casey by the window, and tries to focus on his translations. The Bembridge scholars believed the Book of the Living was hidden at the base of Anubis, but that's where Chamberlain found the Book of the Dead. And if the scholars got the two confused, and mixed up where the two books were buried, then wherever this inscription says they should find the Book of the Dead, is _actually,_ instead, where they'll find—

His baby brother yelps in surprise from across the hall. "Holy—! Ardeth, get over here!"

Medjai crosses the room to them in a few quick steps, then curses colorfully in creative Arabic. From Donatello's side, the curator asks, "What _is_ it?"

But Donatello can make out the chanting now, a repeated, monotonous _Imhotep—Imhotep—Imhotep,_ that echos eerily through the polished halls of the museum, and works a shudder through Donatello's frame.

"It's a mob," Ardeth replies. "Civilians, covered in lesions and boils. They are slaves to him now."

"So it's begun," the curator says faintly. "The end."

"Not yet, Dr. Bey." Leatherhead's voice is steadfast. "There's still a chance, if we can find—"

"I've got it!" Donatello shouts gleefully, grinning up from his seat on the floor in front of the ancient slab of stone. "The Book of the Living is inside the statue of Horus! Take _that,_ Bembridge scholars—I'd like to see you boys reject my application _this_ time!"

"Celebrate your resume later," Michelangelo says, grabbing Donatello by the arm and hauling him to his feet. "There are about a hundred men outside with clubs and swords, and creepy mummy man is leading them up to the front door, we gotta _go."_

They don't even make it to the staircase before the doors burst open, and the people of Cairo batter their way inside, disfigured with sores and glazed in the eyes with the strength of the trance they're trapped in.

"Casey, to the car!" Leatherhead roars over the sound of the mob. "Everyone else, behind him!"

The back staircase is narrow, and the polished steps are slick, but the seven of them manage to make it outside and across the yard without incident. Casey has the car started by the time the rest of them pile in, and Casey guns it into drive as the mob begins to spill down the front steps toward them.

"Imhotep!" an unfortunately familiar voice calls. Beni, betraying them to the undead priest, drawing his attention to their convertible as they speed down the driveway. Imhotep's roar follows them down the road, and Donatello's blood runs cold.

"Oh, you're gonna get yours, Beni," Michelangelo mutters dangerously, eyes narrowed and dark. "You're gonna get yours."

* * *

The bazaar streets are narrow and complicated, and Imhotep's unwilling servants leap at their car from behind every stall and around every corner. Casey's gritting his teeth as he attempts to maintain their speed without losing control, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and Donatello jumps when another man crashed into their windshield.

"This is insane," Daniels says from the backseat. "This is _insane."_

"Next time you hire an expert to go with you on a dig through a cursed temple," Michelangelo snaps over his shoulder, "maybe _listen to him_ when he tells you to leave certain shit alone!"

"To hell with this," the American says, turning in his seat. "To hell with all of you!"

"Sit down," Dr. Bey snaps, but Daniels yanks his arm out of the curator's grip. "You won't last an hour on your own!"

"Are you kiddin'? Y'all are headed back to the damned _City of the Dead_ —I'll take my chances _here_."

And with that, he rolls down the back of the convertible and lands with a heavy thud in the street. Donatello twists in his seat to watch as the man ducks down a dark alley and disappears from sight. Casey rounds a corner sharply, and Donatello swallows the bitter pit in his throat.

He hopes Daniels knows what he's doing.

"Shit!" Casey slams on the brakes suddenly, and the car fishtails out of control, slamming into a wall after a few dizzying seconds. Michelangelo's hands are on Donatello's shoulders before his head has a chance to stop spinning, tugging him urgently out of the seat.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon—"

There's a solid wall of crazed, diseased mind-slaves blocking the road, dozens of men advancing slowly with clubs and knives; the reason Casey tried to stop so suddenly was to avoid plowing straight through them. Climbing out of the car, and scrambling to grab anything that closely resembles a weapon, Donatello follows Michelangelo into the street. Leatherhead and Ardeth have taken a few of the men down, but their group is quickly surrounded and backed into a corner.

And then the mob parts, and Imhotep makes his way toward them in a slow stride, Beni shuffling unhappily behind him. The Egyptian priest is fully regenerated at this point, looking perfectly human, and from behind him, Donatello hears Dr. Bey whisper, "He's successfully consummated the curse."

Poor Daniels.

"All he needs to do now is raise Anck-su-namun from the dead," the curator adds quietly, "and the world as we know it will end."

Imhotep only has eyes for Donatello's brother. There's sick satisfaction in his face, at how he's cornered them like rats, and Donatello wants to _scream._ Why does it have to be Mikey? Is it _really_ only a matter of pride at this point? Imhotep was so willing to take Donatello before, in some twisted, perverse _thanks for bringing me back from the dead,_ but now, because Michelangelo added his two cents to the situation, _he_ was the designated sacrificial lamb.

Michelangelo is tense beside him, almost thrumming with nervous energy, and he's clutching his elephant gun in both fists like a club "Any bright ideas?" he asks Don from the corner of his mouth, eyes never leaving Imhotep's face.

"I'm thinking, I'm _thinking,"_ Donatello whispers back, eyes darting around their small corner of the bazaar, trying to come up with a plan, _any_ plan—even a downright terrible plan will do, at this point, doing anything would be better than doing _nothing_. And with that thought, he understands Michelangelo a little bit better.

"Well, think fast," his baby brother says, shoving his empty rifle at Donatello and squaring his shoulders. "'Cause if he turns me into a mummy, _you're_ the first one I'm coming after."

The words almost don't register at first. Donatello stares at him blankly, uncomprehending, and it's not until Michelangelo takes a few steps forward without him that he _understands._

"Oh, no, _hell_ no, get back here this _instant!"_ he hisses, scrambling to grab for him. Dr. Bey and Ardeth both hold him back, and panic slips into every corner of his mind and body like a plague. "Michelangelo, don't you dare!"

"Mike," Leatherhead says, but that's all he says, because Michelangelo shakes his head sharply.

"Hey, ugly," Michelangelo calls across the street, staring down the high priest and the mob and looming apocalypse without at trace of fear. "I'll make a deal with you. I go along, nice and easy, and you leave my friends here alone." Imhotep stares at him, nothing in his expression to give away what he's thinking, and Michelangelo spreads his hands. "Look, otherwise, I am gonna put up the biggest fight of your _life_. You have never seen anyone as disagreeable as I can be, trust me on that. Hey, Beni, translate for me, would you? Tell him how downright difficult I am."

Beni flinches when Michelangelo addresses him, as though he's hoping to just remain out of sight and out of mind; but he shuffles forward reluctantly, and says a few words to his undead master in halting Hebrew. And the former mummy seems to consider it; after a long moment, he inclines his head in a nod, and puts out his hand. Michelangelo's lip curls a bit, but he crosses the last few feet between them to take it.

"You have a deal," Beni says, and Michelangelo's face goes white with pain as Imhotep all but crushes his hand.

Donatello strains against the arms holding him back. " _Mikey!"_

Ardeth's grip on his shoulder tightens. "Imhotep still has to take him to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual," the Medjai says quietly. "There will be time to save him. We must _live_ today and _fight_ tomorrow."

Casey snarls when Beni searches his pockets for the puzzle box, but with Michelangelo driven almost to his knees from the force of Imhotep's hold on his arm, which is beginning to color a mottled blue, none of them are willing to do anything that might cause him more pain. The Hungarian slips away with their key, and Donatello's heart is almost broken by desperate fear.

"I will be seeing you again," Leatherhead promises Imhotep in a voice like a knife,eyes flashing with honest hatred. "And I will make you sorry for this."

Imhotep finally cracks a smile at that, like oil slicking across dark waters, and commands in his dead language, " _Kill them."_

And the surrounding mob rushes forward at once, while Imhotep turns and moves the opposite direction into the crowd, with Beni and Michelangelo in tow. They disappear almost immediately, swallowed up by the sea of Imhotep's unwilling servants, and Donatello hits the nearest crazed man in the face with the butt of Michelangelo's rifle, without so much as flinching at the sickening _crack._

"Here," Casey shouts suddenly, kicking sidestreet garbage out of the way and crouching above a cistern. He digs his fingers into the grooves and hauls it open, sliding the cover free and then looking up and around at his companions. "Get _down_ here!"

Ardeth drops through the hole, with Casey right behind him, and Donatello lingers another moment, searching the darkness and the chaos vainly for one more glimpse of his brother.

"We'll get him back," Leatherhead says, from where he beats the men away while his friends make their escape. Donatello tightens his grip on Michelangelo's favorite rifle, and hesitates for one more moment that really isn't his to spare; then he turns sharply and rushes to join his companions, climbing into the dark underground before he can think better of it.

The curator doesn't make it. Leatherhead is the last one down, moving the manhole cover back into place behind him, and he only shakes his head with sorrow in his eyes.

 _Well_ , Donatello thinks in a detached way, mostly numbed by the weight of these losses, _it_ _looks like I'm out of a job._

* * *

They drive up to the Erfoud Dunes with dawn peaking over the Sahara. Casey's convertible sputters as they pass a sign that says "Royal Air Force – Giza," and Donatello takes a moment to wonder about this friend Leatherhead is taking them to meet.

The airfield is little more than a single abandoned hanger and one yellow biplane. Leatherhead directs Casey to the edge of the yard, where the tarmac turns to sand, and once the convertible is parked, Michelangelo's friend leads the way up the dune, towards a man reclining in the shade of an umbrella.

A phonograph is pouring Spanish music over his little corner of the desert, and he eyes them over a proper English tea as Leatherhead greets him by name, and then explains their situation and just why, exactly, they need use of his plane.

"And what does your little problem have to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Corp?" the squat pilot asks a little pompously, and where Donatello bristles, and Casey mouths an incredulous ' _little problem?'_ Leatherhead only shakes his head.

"Not a damn thing."

Donatello gapes at him—that certainly doesn't sound like the most _persuasive_ start—but somehow, the veteran seems persuaded. He puts his cup aside with a clink of bone china and leans forward.

"Is it dangerous?"

"You probably won't live through it," Leatherhead confirms, and the other man looks hopelessly intrigued.

"By jove, you really think so?"

"Well, everyone else we've bumped into so far has died," Casey says, cottoning on to what Leatherhead's game is. Which, frankly, makes _one_ of them; Donatello isn't sure what to make of this conversation. "Why not you?"

The pilot stands, facing them with a steely glint in his eye. "What's the challenge, then?" At this point, Leatherhead is smiling crookedly, and knows just how to sell it:

"Rescue our friend, kill the bad guy, and save the world."

Sure enough, the aged man booms a delighted laugh and offers a sharp salute. "Winston Havelock, at your service, sir."

Donatello finds out later that Captain Winston Havelock flew in World War I, and that the rest of his men died in the air. He frequents the casbah back on the British base and tells the same handful of stories over and over again, and does his best to drink himself away.

It doesn't seem odd, anymore, that he would _leap_ at the chance to fly straight into the jaws of Hell.

And when he dies at the edge of Hamunaptra, after an enchanted sandstorm and a brutal crash landing and a patch of dry quicksand that swallows his rugged biplane whole, Donatello is certain his final blaze of glory was one that would have made his comrades proud.

* * *

Casey looks ready to _cry_ at the sight of the treasure room; filled wall-to-wall with shining goldand precious artifacts. Leatherhead leads the way down the stairs cautiously, Michelangelo's rifle in hand. Ardeth walks beside him, matching him step for careful step, armed with the Lewis machine gun formerly mounted on Havelock's biplane.

"Can you see—" Casey says faintly. Donatello doesn't spare him a glance.

"Yeah."

"Can you believe—"

"Yeah."

"Can we just—"

" _No."_

Wealth of Egypt aside, Michelangelo is in this temple somewhere, in _danger,_ and Donatello isn't willing to waste a single second in getting to him, saving him, and then sending Imhotep to the afterlife once and for all—whatever it takes.

There's a soft sound, like a murmur, from behind them; as they spin around and search for the source, a hand punches through the floor, reaching and rotting. Donatello stumbles back into Leatherhead as a decayed corpse pulls itself out of the newly-made hole and towards him.

"What is—the Bembridge scholars never wrote about _this—"_

The first body is joined by more, and more, groaning and staggering towards them; Leatherhead levels the elephant gun, asking Ardeth, "Who are they?"

"Priests. _Imhotep's_ priests, I'm sure."

Which is all the reason Leatherhead needs to blast the first one in the chest, pump the gun, and blow off the next one's head.

Casey's firing from a pistol in each hand, and calls over the din of Ardeth's machine gun, "I think Leatherhead might be holding a grudge."

"That makes two of us," Donatello mutters bitterly. More and more mummies are digging themselves up out of the ground, and soon enough the four of them fall back, running through the maze of treasures and into a passageway behind a row of golden statues.

The whole temple is coming alive, it seems, as they run into reanimated corpses with nearly every turn they take through the labyrinth. Ardeth's machine gun is empty by the time they burst into a small chamber, and Donatello goes weak with relief at the sight of Horus, the giant, falcon-headed statue in the back of the room.

Leatherhead shrugs the gunnysack off his shoulder and lights a match on the side of his boot. When he stands, it's with a stick of dynamite in hand, its fuse lit and shrinking fast. Ardeth drags Donatello and Casey around to relative safety on the other side of the statue's stone base as Leatherhead blows up the doorway they just came through and half a dozen mummies with it, causing a cave-in that seems to shake the whole world.

When the stones are done falling, the way through is effectively blocked, buying them time enough away from the undead hoard to search the Horus statue for the Book of the Living. Casey and Donatello waste no time getting started, digging at the stone with their fingers.

The seam of the secret compartment finally starts to give under their hands, and Casey lets out a choked little _"hah!"_ as they begin working it free, and that's when Ardeth moves swiftly to his feet. He snatches Michelangelo's elephant gun off of the ground, and takes a handful of cartridges from the gunny sack for good measure.

Donatello pauses long enough to follow his line of sight, and sees another impossible number of the mummies headed for them, from another dark passageway.

"They just don't _quit,"_ Casey bites out, and Donatello rubs the hair out of his eyes with one dirty hand and gives another mighty tug on the chest they've managed to uncover. Leatherhead and the Medjai are keeping the ghouls at bay, and when the wooden box finally comes free, Donatello yanks the lid off the top, and tears through a woven cloth, and—

There it is.

The Book of Amun-Ra, a book of pure gold, decorated with ornate Scarab beetles, the Eye of Horus, and an eight-pointed lock. Donatello is holding his childhood dream in both hands, and it glitters in the faint torchlight; it's _validation_ and _fulfillment_ and—

And Donatello doesn't give himself a moment to enjoy it.

"We've got it!" he says without preamble, tucking the fabled, precious thing under his arm like a bundle of dirty laundry as he scrambles to his feet. "We've got the book, let's go!"

"You go," Ardeth says, fighting to keep the hoard of mummies back. "Rescue your brother, and find a way to kill the creature! Go, _now!"_

* * *

Michelangelo is chained to an altar when they find him, alive and all in one piece; Donatello could cry with relief when he catches sight of his stubborn brother fighting against his bindings for all he's worth. The necropolis is overrun with mummies, all of them gathered around Michelangelo and bowing on their knees as Imhotep reads softly from the black book.

"I will distract him," Leatherhead says, with hungry vengeance in his eyes. "You will save Mike."

"Got it," Casey whispers, and Leatherhead moves like a wraith down the last staircase, as silent as a shadow. Donatello's heart is in his throat when Imhotep raises an ornate dagger over his head, fingers curling into Casey's arm hard enough to leave bruises—

And then Imhotep is flying aside, caught unawares by the sledgehammer Leatherhead swung at the side of his head. Leatherhead scooped up the tool on their dash through the temple, one they had left behind after their first visit and certainly found use for again now.

"I told you I would see you again," Leatherhead says coldly.

"Leatherhead!" Mikey sounds elated. "Buddy, am I glad to see you!"

"As am I, my friend," is Leatherhead's fond reply, before he moves ahead to draw Imhotep as far away from the altar as possible. "Donatello, now!"

Donatello is already crossing the room at this point, unable to wait for his cue with his brother _chained to a table_ next to a very rotten, very decomposed body. He dumps the gold book to the ground and leans over Michelangelo desperately, framing his face and searching him for any signs of hurt. His arm is mottled, and bent at an ugly angle, and his face has collected a few new bruises, but other than that...

"Thank god we made it in time," Donatello says in a clumsy rush, smoothing back Michelangelo's tangled hair. "You'll be just fine now, don't you worry. Casey, hurry up."

"Yeah, let me just finish killing these dozen mummies real quick first, okay?"

"You're here," Michelangelo says slowly, something surprised and delighted and achingly grateful blooming in his honest eyes. He blinks, then lets himself smile—a silly, crooked thing—and says glibly, "Heh, I wasn't worried."

"Well, you had me fooled," Casey grumbles, shoving a borrowed scimitar into his waistband and turning to get started picking the locks on the manacles. That's when he notices Michelangelo's arm, and he swears colorfully under his breath. "Good lord, Mikey, is that from when that creep grabbed you in the bazaar?"

"Yeah, it's—pretty broken. Can you— _ow—_ be careful plea— _ow!"_ The first chain falls away, and Donatello doesn't waste a second dragging him up by the shoulders and into a hard embrace.

"If you ever pull a stupid stunt like that again I will make you live to regret it, do you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah. Loud and clear." His tone is disingenuous but he hugs back tightly for a brief moment; and then Casey has him free, and he's swinging his legs over the side of the table and jumping down. "C'mon, Leatherhead can't hold him for long. Casey, you go help him—I'll just get in the way with one arm."

Casey rolls his eyes so hard Donatello is distantly afraid he might sprain something, and yanks the scimitar out of his belt again, muttering something about _bossiness_ being _hereditary_ as he jumps the shallow pool and rushes around the corner in the direction Leatherhead and Imhotep had gone.

"Mikey, we need the key," Donatello says, as he helps his brother over to the steps of a nearby mausoleum. Michelangelo sits heavily, injured arm cradled as carefully as he can, and digs in his pocket with his good hand.

"Yeah, I figured. I stole the puzzle box out of his robes when he was manhandling me earlier." He flashes a grin as Donatello sits beside him, and adds, "So let's get this sucker op—en... Oh." His eyes are huge in the gloom as Donatello pulls the golden book into their laps. "Oh, wow, _Donnie_."

"I know."

"I can't believe—Donnie, we're _holding_ it—"

"I know."

He leans against his brother's arm to fit the open puzzle box into the lock, and twists until the mechanism releases.

They don't need to see Imhotep for the spell to do its work; somewhere in the vast, sprawling cemetery, Leatherhead and Casey are keeping the undead priest at bay, and Donatello reads the inscription out loud carefully, tracing each hieroglyph with his finger as he goes, Michelangelo's head pillowed on his shoulder to watch.

He's halfway through the incantation when the howling winds start. Something shrieks, and something else moans, a tumult of sudden noise and chaos. Imhotep is screaming from some distant corner of the necropolis, and Donatello doesn't shout to be heard; this old magic will work, he trusts that.

Operating on faith, as Casey said. _Believing_ in what he can't see or feel, as Michelangelo always has.

He continues calmly, his brother a warm weight at his side, and doesn't finish reading the dead language aloud until the screaming and hard winds have ceased, and their friends come around the corner to join them.

"Is he gone?" Michelangelo asks, reaching for Leatherhead with his good arm. His large friend sits on the step beside him, no worse for wear, as Casey slumps next to Donatello.

"He's gone. The spell you used turned him mortal."

"And then Leatherhead broke his skull."

"Nice," Donatello mutters in distaste, but that only makes the rest of them laugh.

"Hey, Donnie?" Mikey pipes up suddenly. He's smiling when Donatello glances over, soft and sincere. "Thanks for coming back for me this time."

And after all these years _desperately_ seeking validation, it's only in this moment that Donatello finds it.

* * *

Of course _one more thing_ had to go terribly wrong, and the four of them tear madly back up through the temple as the whole place shudders and groans. All the doorways are sinking, stone walls descending over exits and passageways in some kind of end-all chain reaction. They run, and run, and _run,_ and Casey only hesitates for a split second as they spring through the treasure room—he only _gets_ a split second, before three hands are hauling him forward again by the front of his shirt.

The last doorway is already coming down, and Donatello shoves Michelangelo towards the gap first, then Casey is pushing him through in turn. Casey is the next out, crouching in the four-foot gap, and Leatherhead brings up the rear, sliding through with barely an inch to spare.

They take the stone ramp at a dead sprint, followed by a few stray camels, and only stop running once they're in the relative safety of the sand dunes. Then, they turn, and watch the ancient ruins collapse in on themselves, sending up massive, mile-high pillars of sand over and over until the temple finally disappears under the Sahara for good.

They just stand there in the desert sun, chests heaving, for what feels like an hour.

Then Casey breaks the silence with a wild scream, spinning away from the hand that landed on his shoulder from behind, and Donatello has a second to think _what now_ as they whirl around—

"Ardeth!" Michelangelo greets cheerfully, at the same time Leatherhead rumbles a relieved, "I'm glad you made it out, my friend," and Casey cusses creatively under his breath.

The Medjai is smiling faintly at them from where he sits atop one of the camels, and reaches behind him for Michelangelo's elephant gun. The boy lights up when he sees it, and takes it happily with his good hand, and the desert dweller says, "You have earned the respect, and gratitude, of me and my people. May Allah smile upon you, always."

"Oh, sure, it was nothing. All in a day's work, you know," Casey grumbles as Ardeth takes his leave, looking distinctly wronged by the world and annoyed. "I can't _believe_ we have to go home empty-handed _again."_

"I wouldn't say that," Leatherhead says wisely, calling over one of the stray camels with a few soft clicks of his tongue. Its saddle-bag is packed to bursting, and jingling with each of the camel's long strides, and Casey's eyes go comically wide as Leatherhead pulls the bag open.

 _Gold._

"Oh, wow," Michelangelo says, and he only sounds mildly impressed, where Casey looks like he's having some sort of religious experience. "Hey—isn't that Beni's bag?"

"It looks like it. He must have tried to make away with some of the treasure. I can only assume he decided to go back in for more."

"Then he's probably the reason the doors all came down like that," Donatello realizes. "The idiot booby-trapped himself inside. He's long gone, now."

"Who _cares?"_ Casey whoops, dancing a jig around the camel, and slipping twice in the loose sand. He's _deliriously_ happy, and punches Leatherhead on the arm a few times. "Do you _see_ this haul? Once we get all this back to the Museum of Antiquities, there's no one who could doubt we found the City of the Dead! I've helped make an honest-to-god _discovery_!"

For a part-time thief and a sometimes-scoundrel, Casey can be astonishingly ethic at times. And it doesn't shock Donatello that Casey wasn't ever in this adventure for the money, but it's a pleasant surprise all the same.

"Uh, Donnie?" Michelangelo says slowly, drawing back his brother's attention. "There's this, too." Donatello watches him clumsily sling the elephant gun over his good shoulder, then fumble with his jacket for a moment. His wounded arm is cradled awkwardly against his chest, and in a manner of seconds, Donatello immediately understands why.

"The Book of Amun-Ra?" He's flabbergasted as he takes the weighted tome, running reverent fingers over the precious cover. In all the chaos of before, he'd counted it lost for good. He never expected he'd get to hold it again. "I can't believe you managed to hold onto this while we were running for our lives out of a sinking temple!"

"I've been in way tighter spots than that before," Michelangelo says with a shrug, and a smile that makes it hard to tell whether he's joking or not. "But honestly, I—didn't want our only adventure together to end up a total failure." He rubs the back of his head, not quite meeting Donatello's eyes anymore. "Y'know, bringing back the Biblical plagues, accidentally cursing a bunch of people, almost ending the world... That's pretty bad, even for me. So at least now, you have the Book of the Living, and—"

The book hits the sand, falling like its weight in garbage, and Donatello pulls his brother forward against his chest; tucking Michelangelo's head under his cheek and holding him close.

"You undeniable fool," he says fondly, so full of love for this boy it almost hurts. "You think I'm going to let the _first_ adventure I take with you be the _last?_ Absolutely not."

Michelangelo is stiff with surprise in his arms, and their friends are silent. Donatello feels the weight of the last few days in his bones, and he knows that once the adrenaline wears off he's going to be a _mess,_ and there's a lot more to do before this relationship with his brother is back to where it should be—

But Donatello has been given, of all impossible things, a _chance._ A chance to make discoveries, and have adventure, and see the world, and do all of it the way he always dreamed, with his brother by his side.

"Besides, you promised me a cavern in Belize," he says with a smile, and Michelangelo leans back enough to stare at him.

"You mean it?" He looks hopeful and ecstatic in equal measure, and hops on the spot, like it's too much to contain standing still. "Oh, it'll be so much fun, Donnie, you won't regret it! It usually isn't as messy as all this, honest, it usually goes a _lot_ smoother—"

"It is _never_ smooth, and it is _always_ messy," Leatherhead says dryly, smiling at the two of them affectionately. "But it's generally—usually—fairly worthwhile."

"We can go to the lost city of Atlantis next, I don't care," Casey says emphatically. "But we're stopping in Cairo _first._ Our names are going on a plaque on the wall in that godforsaken museum if I have to put one there _myself."_

"Of course we are," Donatello agrees. "And we're going back to my place first. I have to pack my books, my tools, my clothes—"

"Good _lord_ , Don. You can't be serious."

"—and my cat."

"We're _definitely_ going back to Donnie's place first."

And who knows? Maybe one day they'll stumble upon their older brothers, too, in this big, wide world. Maybe one day they'll mend those broken bridges, and their family will be closer to whole again, and Michelangelo will forget what being alone felt like.

Maybe.

But for now, one thing is certain:

 _Whatever we do, wherever we go,_ Donatello thinks with a smile, shading his eyes against the blistering sun while his friends argue and laugh, _at least we'll be in good company._


End file.
